Freedom of
Rome.

17

and feeble efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the proselytes multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendour, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their place among the Roman deities. 16 Nor was this indulgence a departure from the old maxims of government. In the purest ages of the commonwealth, Cybele and Esculapius had been invited by solemn embassies; and it was customary to tempt the protectors of besieged cities by the promise of more distinguished honours than they possessed in their native country.18 Rome gradually became the common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind.1o II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the forpure tune and hastened the ruin of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more prudent, as well as honourable, to adopt virtue and merit for her own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers, enemies or barbarians. 20 During the most flourishing æra of the Athenian commonwealth the number of citizens gradually decreased from about thirty21 to twenty-one thousand.22 If, on the contrary, we study the growth of the Roman republic, we may discover that, notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and colonies, the citizens, who, in the first census of Servius Tullius, amounted to no more than eighty-three thousand, were multiplied, before the commencement of the Social War, to the number of four hundred and sixty-three thousand men able to bear arms in the service of their country.23 public expense (Dion, 1. xlvii. [c. 15] p. 501). When Augustus was in Egypt he revered the majesty of Serapis (Dion, 1. li. [c. 16] p. 647); but in the Pomarium of Rome, and a mile round it, he prohibited the worship of the Egyptian gods (Dion, 1. liii. [c. 2] p. 697, 1. liv. [c. 6] p. 735). They remained, however, very fashionable under his reign (Ovid. de Art. Amand. 1. i. [v. 77]) and that of his successor, till the justice of Tiberius was provoked to some acts of severity. (See Tacit. Annal. ii. 85; Joseph. Antiquit. 1. xviii. c. 3.)

16 Tertullian in Apologetic. c. 6, p. 74, edit. Havercamp. I am inclined to attribute their establishment to the devotion of the Flavian family.

17 See Livy, 1. xi. [12] [Suppl.] and xxix. [11.]

18 Macrob. Saturnalia, I. iii. c. 9. He gives us a form of evocation.

19 Minucius Felix in Octavio, p. 54 [p. 52, Leyden ed. 1672]. Arnobius, 1. vi. p. 115.

20 Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. The Orbis Romanus of the learned Spanheim is a complete history of the progressive admission of Latium, Italy, and the provinces, to the freedom of Rome.

21 Herodotus, v. 97. It should seem, however, that he followed a large and popular estimation.

22 Athenæus, Deipnosophist. 1. vi. [c. 103] p. 272, edit. Casaubon. Meursius de Fortunâ Atticâ, c. 4."

23 See a very accurate collection of the numbers of each Lustrum in M. de Beaufort, République Romaine, 1. iv. c. 4.b

On the number of citizens in Athens, compare Bockh, Public Economy of Athens (English tr.) p. 45 et seq. Fynes

Clinton, Essay in Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. 381.-M.

b All these questions are placed in an

When the allies of Rome claimed an equal share of honours and privileges, the senate indeed preferred the chance of arms to an ignominious concession. The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the severe penalty of their rashness; but the rest of the Italian states, as they successively returned to their duty, were admitted into the bosom of the republic,24 and soon contributed to the ruin of public freedom. Under a democratical government the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. But when the popular assemblies had been suppressed by the administration of the emperors, the conquerors were distinguished from the vanquished nations only as the first and most honourable order of subjects; and their increase, however rapid, was no longer exposed to the same dangers. Yet the wisest princes, who adopted the maxims of Augustus, guarded with the strictest care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the freedom of the city with a prudent liberality.2

25

Italy.

Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the residence, of the emperors and the senate.26 The estates of the Italians were exempt from taxes, their persons from the arbitrary jurisdiction of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed after the perfect model of the capital, were intrusted, under the immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria all the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently rewarded

24 Appian. de Bell. Civil. 1. i. [c. 53]. Velleius Paterculus, 1. ii. c. 15, 16, 17.

25 Mæcenas had advised him to declare, by one edict, all his subjects citizens. But we may justly suspect that the historian Dion was the author of a counsel so much adapted to the practice of his own age, and so little to that of Augustus.

16 The senators were obliged to have one-third of their own landed property in Italy. See Plin. 1. vi. ep. 19. The qualification was reduced by Marcus to onefourth. Since the reign of Trajan, Italy had sunk nearer to the level of the provinces.

entirely new point of view by Niebuhr (Römische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 464). He rejects the census of Servius Tullius as unhistoric (vol. ii. p. 78 et seq.), and he establishes the principle that the census comprehended all the confederate cities which had the right of Isopolity.-M.

"It may be doubted whether the mu

nicipal government of the cities was not the old Italian constitution rather than a transcript from that of Rome. The free government of the cities, observes Savigny, was the leading characteristic of Italy. Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, i. p. 16.-M.

Had she always con

by the merit and services of her adopted sons. fined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call himself an Apulian or a Lucanian: it was in Padua that an historian was found worthy to record the majestic series of Roman victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum; and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honour of producing Marius and Cicero, the former of whom deserved, after Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the Third Founder of Rome; and the latter, after saving his country from the designs of Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of eloquence.27

The pro

vinces.

The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force or constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, 28 and in Gaul,29 it was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were dismissed from their thrones as soon as they had performed their appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations. The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that authority was absolute and without control. But the same salutary maxims of government, which had secured the peace and obedience of Italy, were extended to the most distant conquests. A nation of Romans was gradually formed in the provinces, by the double expedient of introducing colonies, and of admitting the most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the freedom of Rome.

"Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits," is a very just Colonies observation of Seneca, 30 confirmed by history and expecipal towns. rience. The natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest, hastened to enjoy the advantages of victory; and we may

and muni

27 The first part of the Verona Illustrata of the Marquis Maffei gives the clearest and most comprehensive view of the state of Italy under the Caesars."

28 See Pausanias, 1. vii. [c. 16]. The Romans condescended to restore the names of those assemblies, when they could no longer be dangerous.

29 They are frequently mentioned by Cæsar. The Abbé Dubos attempts, with very little success, to prove that the assemblies of Gaul were continued under the emperors. Histoire de l'Etablissement de la Monarchie Françoise, 1. i. c. 4.

30 Seneca in Consolat. ad Helviam, c. 7.

a

Compare Denina, Revol. d' Italia, 1. ii. c. 6, p. 100, 4to. edit.

31

remark, that, about forty years after the reduction of Asia, eighty thousand Romans were massacred in one day by the cruel orders of Mithridates. These voluntary exiles were engaged, for the most part, in the occupations of commerce, agriculture, and the farm of the revenue. But after the legions were rendered permanent by the emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of soldiers; and the veterans, whether they received the reward of their service in land or in money, usually settled with their families in the country where they had honourably spent their youth. Throughout the empire, but more particularly in the western parts, the most fertile districts, and the most convenient situations, were reserved for the establishment of colonies; some of which were of a civil, and others of a military nature. In their manners and internal policy the colonies formed a perfect representation of their great parent; and as they were soon endeared to the natives by the ties of friendship and alliance, they effectually diffused a reverence for the Roman name, and a desire, which was seldom disappointed, of sharing, in due time, its honours and advantages. The municipal cities insensibly equalled the rank and splendour of the colonies; and in the reign of Hadrian it was disputed which was the preferable condition, of those societies which had issued from, or those which had been received into, the bosom of Rome.33 The right of Latium, as it was called, conferred on the cities to which it had been granted a more partial favour. The magistrates only, at the expiration of their office, assumed the quality of Roman citizens; but as those offices were annual, in a few years they circulated round the principal families.34 Those of the provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions; 35 those who exercised any civil employment; all, in a word, who performed any public service or displayed any personal talents, were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually diminished by the increasing liberality of the emperors. Yet even in the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city had been bestowed on the greater

31 Memnon apud Photium (c. 33) [p. 231, ed. Bekker]. Valer. Maxim. ix, 2 [ext. 3]. Plutarch [Sulla, c. 24] and Dion Cassius [p. 74, Fr. 176] swell the massacre to 150,000 citizens; but I should esteem the smaller number to be more than sufficient.

32 Twenty-five colonies were settled in Spain (see Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3, 4, iv. 35); and nine in Britain, of which London, Colchester, Lincoln, Chester, Gloucester, and Bath, still remain considerable cities. (See Richard of Cirencester, p. 36, and Whitaker's History of Manchester, 1. i. c. 3.)

93 Aul. Gell. Noctes Atticæ, xvi. 13. The Emperor Hadrian expressed his surprise that the cities of Utica, Gades, and Italica, which already enjoyed the rights of Municipia, should solicit the title of colonies. Their example, however, became fashionable, and the empire was filled with honorary colonies. See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, Dissertat. xiii.

34 Spanheim, Orbis Roman. c. 8, p. 62.

35 Aristid. in Romæ Encomio, tom. i. p. 218, edit. Jebb.

Division of the Latin and the Greek provinces.

37

number of their subjects, it was still accompanied with very solid advantages. The bulk of the people acquired, with that title, the benefit of the Roman laws, particularly in the interesting articles of marriage, testaments, and inheritances; and the road of fortune was open to those whose pretensions were seconded by favour or merit. The grandsons of the Gauls who had besieged Julius Cæsar in Alesia commanded legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate of Rome. 36 Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of the state, was intimately connected with its safety and greatness. So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. The ancient dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the Venetian, sunk into oblivion; but in the provinces, the East was less docile than the West to the voice of its victorious preceptors. This obvious difference marked the two portions of the empire with a distinction of colours, which, though it was in some degree concealed during the meridian splendour of prosperity, became gradually more visible as the shades of night descended upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by the same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were reconciled to obedience, their minds were opened to any new impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Pannonia,38 that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in the mountains or among the peasants.39 Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her Latin provincials.

36 Tacit. Annal. xi. 23, 24. Hist. iv. 74.

37 See Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5 (s. 6]. Augustin, de Civitate Dei, xix. 7. Lipsius de Pronunciatione Linguæ Latinæ, c. 3.

38 Apuleius and Augustin will answer for Africa; Strabo for Spain and Gaul; Tacitus, in the Life of Agricola, for Britain; and Velleius Paterculus for Pannonia. To them we may add the language of the Inscriptions."

39 The Celtic was preserved in the mountains of Wales, Cornwall, and Armorica. We may observe that Apuleius reproaches an African youth, who lived among the populace, with the use of the Punic; whilst he had almost forgot Greek, and neither could nor would speak Latin (Apolog: p. 556). The greater part of St. Austin's congregations were strangers to the Punic.

A Mr. Hallam contests this assertion as regards Britain. "Nor did the Romans ever establish their language, I know not whether they wished to do so, in this island, as we perceive by that stubborn British tongue which has survived two conquests." In his note Mr. Hallam ex

amines the passage from Tacitus (Agric. xxi.) to which Gibbon refers. It merely asserts the progress of Latin studies among the higher orders. Midd. Ages, iii. 314. Probably it was a kind of court language and that of public affairs, and prevailed in the Roman colonies.-M.